You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your
heart. Jeremiah 29:13
Hunger pains are real—that
ache that gnaws at you until you satisfy the emptiness.
Do you ever feel hunger
pains for God or is your soul too stuffed with material things? Are you willing
to release your appetite for temporal things and increase your appetite for
more of God?
Author Ann Voskamp
experienced this hunger for God on a visit to Guatemala with Compassion
International. She writes:
…when I’m standing there
witnessing a kid at the Guatemalan City Dump looking for something to eat from
a garbage heap, I’m feeling this North American bloated. That I’m feeling a
little sickened, a little nauseated by the meringue and sprinkles and icing
we’re stuffing ourselves with that leaves us faith-emaciated. There’s a kid
looking through rotting garbage for food, for crying out loud. Somebody — cry
out loud. And the stuff they’re shilling in all the commercials is always only
one thing: appetite suppressants. Buy more, consume more, have more — and it’ll
suppress any appetite for God.
My head feels light,
spinny: Is craving North American success just craving normal appetite
suppressants? When your comfort food is comfortable stuff — when do you hunger
for the comfort of the Bread of Life? Ruin your appetite with stuff and you have
no appetite for Christ.”
In our verse today, we learned that when we seek God, we will
find Him! One way to increase our appetite for God is help those less
fortunate. Proverbs 19:17 says, “Whoever is kind to the poor lends to the Lord,
and He will reward them for what they have done.”
The person in this verse saw the plight of a neighbor in need
and stepped in to help. Their loan may have been a monetary gift or maybe it
was a generous act of friendship. The poor can often not repay, but God has
infinite resources.
Two things are important here: 1) Kindness is an act of
compassion. Love is the key. Helping the poor is of no use if it is done for
selfish gain. 2) God takes the kindness and considers it as if it were done to
Him.
Ann Voskamp reminds us, “It’s only by amazing grace you are born
where you are — to be abundant, amazing grace for someone born somewhere
else. That’s the point.”
Lord, help me to seek after that which truly satisfies. Help me
to see the plight of the poor and help those in need.
